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Fossil Friday Roundup: May 5, 2017

Featured Image: Artistic life reconstruction of the new species Galeamopus pabsti from the Jurassic of Wyoming, USA, by Davide Bonadonna (Milan, Italy). Copyright: Davide Bonadonna, permission granted for use in news articles. See Tschopp and Mateus (2017).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • The Weng’an Biota (Doushantuo Formation): an Ediacaran window on soft-bodied and multicellular microorganisms (Journal of the Geological Society)
  • Phenotypic disparity in Iberian short-horned grasshoppers (Acrididae): the role of ecology and phylogeny (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Linking speciation to extinction: Diversification raises contemporary extinction risk in amphibians (Evolution Letters)
  • Mosasauroid phylogeny under multiple phylogenetic methods provides new insights on the evolution of aquatic adaptations in the group (PLOS ONE)
  • Isolated teeth of Anhangueria (Pterosauria: Pterodactyloidea) from the Lower Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia (PeerJ)
  • Anhanguera taxonomy revisited: is our understanding of Santana Group pterosaur diversity biased by poor biological and stratigraphic control? (PeerJ)
  • The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae (PeerJ)
  • Osteology of Galeamopus pabsti sp. nov. (Sauropoda: Diplodocidae), with implications for neurocentral closure timing, and the cervico-dorsal transition in diplodocids (PeerJ)
  • A new crested theropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic 1 of Yunnan Province, China (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
  • A new tiny dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group of western Liaoning and niche differentiation among the Jehol dromaeosaurids (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
  • Mosaic evolution in an asymmetrically feathered troodontid dinosaur with transitional features (Nature Communications)
  • Review of historical and current research on the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs from Laiyang, Shandong (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
  • Late middle Eocene caviomorph rodents from Contamana, Peruvian Amazonia (PalaeoE)
  • Sagittal crest formation in great apes and gibbons (Journal of Anatomy)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

  • Diversity in Paleontology Workshop GoFundMe (Link)
  • PLOS Early Career Travel Award Program, Due May 31 (Link)
  • Women in Paleontology Day (Orlando, FL), May 6, 10 am-4 pm (Link)

New and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

  • Fossil Friday – partial Mastodon skeleton (Valley of the Mastodon)
  • Perils of the Big Snooze (Synapsida)
  • A historic discovery (Link)
  • Guest Post: A color-coded model of the AMNH “Brontosaurus” mount, by Tom Johnson (SV-POW)
  • If Not Us, Then Whom? (Dr. Neurosaurus)
  • Discovering DNA in Dirt, & 4 Other Amazing Things that Happened in Paleoanthropology Last Week! (Paige Fossil History)
  • Two new sauropods in PeerJ today: Galeamopus pabsti (sp. nov) and Vouivria damparisensis (gen. et sp. nov.) (SV-POW)
  • Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month April 2017 (UCL M&C Blog)
  • Jurassic animal found on Skye ‘fed milk to young’ (Link)
  • A Newly Discovered Dinosaur Has Tail Feathers Like Modern Birds (Forbes)
  • Paleo Profile: The Shuangbai Lizard (Laelaps)
  • The Mammoth March (Laelaps)
  • Researchers identify evidence of oldest orchid fossil on record (Link)
  • “Last African dinosaur” discovered in Moroccan mine (Link)
  • Jianianhualong and the evolution of feathers (Letters from Gondwana)
  • Allosaurus: Beast of the Week (Prehistoric Beast of the Week)

Featured Folks and Fieldwork:

Museums, Methods, and Musings:

  • Marching for Science and the merits of putting a human face on our scientific efforts (PeerJ Blog)
  • Curiosities from UCL’s Cabinet (UCL M&C Blog)

Arts, Books, Culture, and Fun:

  • Dinosaur Island (Letters from Gondwana)
  • From Humanoids to Heptapods: The Evolution of Extraterrestrials in Science Fiction (Extinct)
  • A Review of Neanderthal: the Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman, Part 2 (Tetrapod Zoology)

Do you have some news, a blog, or something just plain cool you want to share with the PLOS Paleo Community? Email it to us at paleocommunity@plos.org, tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo, or message us on Facebook.

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